similar tactics and measures were again employed during the rebellion of 1929–1930.17 The Sheikh Said rebellion, albeit defeated heavily and suppressed mercilessly, had ignited the chain of Kurdish rebellions of different magnitudes.
Syria: New Political Headquarters
With the brutal suppression of the revolt, deportation, and harassment of the Kurds, the Kurdish nationalist leadership came under attack. As a number of Kurdish tribes that had participated in the revolt were forced to flee across the borders, Syria became the recipient of many members of Turkey’s Kurdish nationalist and traditionalist leadership and thousands of Kurds who took part in the rebellion. The exact number of Kurds who went to Syria in this way and who were accommodated by the French mandate authorities in Syria is unknown. Academic research suggests that it would be around 25,000.18
Those who fled to Syria included Kurds, such as Jaladat (Celadet) Ali Bedirkhan (1893–1851) who created the Kurdish-Kurmanji alphabet in Latin letters, and his brother Kamuran Bedirkhan (1895–1978) belonging to the ruling dynasty of Cizre; Botan (Jazirat al-Omar), who were the forerunners of Kurdish nationalist sentiment in the nineteenth century; Ihsan Nuri Pasha, the commander of the second big Kurdish revolt in the aftermath of Sheikh Said rebellion; Ekrem Jamil Pasha (1891–1974) and Kadri Jamil Pasha (1892–1973), renowned notables of Diyarbakır; and Osman Sabri (1905–93), the founder of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Party in 1957.
The settling of Turkey’s Kurdish national leadership in Syria sowed the seeds for the intertwined nature of Turkey’s and Syria’s Kurdish problem, as would be seen in the second decade of the 2000s. In the short run, their settlement with some rebellious Kurdish tribes in Syria laid the ground for the second most important Kurdish rebellion in Turkish Republican history: the Ararat Rebellion of 1927–1931.
As much as the trans-border character of the Kurdish question was determined by the installation of the Kurdish nationalist leadership in the territory of Syria,19 it is also indicative that, for the Kurds, whether they were on the Turkish or Syrian side of the border (which was disputed at the time by France, the mandatory power in Syria and Turkey), the overlap was more of a common space, in terms of language, tribal affiliation, ethnicity, and family, rather than a distinct line of separation.20 Moreover, in the 1920s, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq had not yet emerged in nation-state format, thus for the Kurds, the borders that delineated the former Ottoman territories between Turkey and its new southern neighbors, Syria and Iraq, did not carry much practical significance.
France in Syria: Different from Britain in Iraq
France, as the mandatory power in Syria, should be considered the main reason attracting the beleaguered Kurdish nationalist leadership of Turkey and the bulk of the rebellious tribes escaping from the wrath of Turkish power. As historian Tejel explicates:
French policy in the Levant went completely in the opposite direction to that of the British in Iraq. Instead of looking for support from unified Sunni Arab nationalism, the French policy was based on the defense of non-Sunni communities, notably the Druzes, the Alawites, and the Christians. The French administration presented itself simply as being the arbitrator between the ethnic and religious minorities and the Sunni Muslim majority. . . . For France, Syrian unity was nothing more than an Arab nationalist invention perceived as an artificial creation of the British to harm French interests in the Middle East.21
As Syria under French rule presented the best refuge for the Kurdish exiles from Turkey, those nationalists, both intellectual and tribal, continued their endeavors to confront the Turkish government from the Syrian territory. Allsop explains:
The efforts of Kurdish exiles culminated in the establishment of the Xoybun League in 1927. The committee which came together for its formal establishment in Lebanon was made up of Kurdish intellectuals, leaders of tribes, sheiks and rebel fighters from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. The group set out to unite the Kurdish movement around a single aim: to unify their political efforts and turn their struggle towards Turkey and the liberation of the Kurds from Turkish claws.22
The spelling Xoybun, according to alphabet developed by its founding leader Jaladat Bedirkhan, also transliterated as Khoybun or Hoybun. It literally meant “Be Yourself” connoting independence. “This committee,” wrote Jordi Tejel in his chapter entitled “The Kurds during French Mandate,”
was the basis for the conceptualization, in Kurmanji dialect, of modern Kurdish nationalism, and by consequence, for the widespread doctrine in Turkey and Syria. The Khoybun League made deliberate efforts to create diplomatic contact, for the most part unofficial, with state players (Iran, France, Great Britain, Italy, the Soviet Union) and nonstate actors of the region (Armenians and the Turkish opposition). In so doing, the Khoybun succeeded in establishing itself as part of the network of politico-military alliances, to such a degree that it became an essential regional actor, for example, at the time of the Ararat revolt (1927–31).23
Tejel continues:
It is clear that the French authorities could have prevented, from the very beginning, all activity by the Khoybun League if it had so wished. According to available documentation, the French Intelligence Services were well aware of the Kurdish committee’s subversive activities. The movements and contacts of its members were under surveillance.24
However, French authorities were aware of the potential usefulness of the Kurdish nationalist activity against the Kemalist regime in Turkey even while Franco-Turkish negotiations on the delimitation of the Turkish–Syrian border were underway. They wanted to employ the “Kurdish card” against Turkey.
Ararat: The Second Big Revolt
The most significant role of the Khoybun League was its involvement in execution of the Ararat revolt (in Turkish Ağrı Dağı İsyanı). At the founding meeting of Khoybun in Beirut, Ihsan Nuri Pasha, a Kurdish officer who had served in the Ottoman army, was declared as the supreme commander of the Kurdish forces on Mt. Ararat (Ağrı Dağı). “In 1928 he initiated the revolt leading his men to Mount Ararat and set up a mini Kurdish proto-state which flew the Kurdish flag and had thousands of trained and armed forces.”25
Unlike their response during the Sheikh Said rebellion, at the initial stages of the Ararat revolt the Turkish authorities made attempts of conciliation with the rebellious Kurdish forces. These went nowhere however, and in 1930 a military campaign was launched. Mount Ararat was surrounded from all sides, and the Turkish air force continuously rained bombs over the rebels. The same year also saw a big massacre in the Zilan valley, situated at the northwest corner of Lake Van and in the proximity of the rebel headquarters on Mount Ararat. The Turkish daily Cumhuriyet, in its 16 July 1930 issue, claimed that 15,000 people were annihilated in the Zilan military operation, and that Zilan Creek flowing in the valley was filled with corpses. The campaign against the rebellious Kurds was over by September 17, 1930. The insurrection was entirely defeated by 1931 and the central government of Turkey resumed control over the territory.
During the rebellion, because the border between Turkey and Persia (Iran) ran up the side of Lesser Ararat (in Turkish Küçük Ağrı) to its peak, Turkish military was unable to stop Kurdish fighters from crossing the border at an extremely rugged location. After extinguishing the revolt and resuming control over the territory, Turkey demanded that the entire mountain be ceded. In January, the two countries signed the agreement redesigning the frontier. Compensating Persia with 90 square miles in the vicinity of the mountain, Turkey acquired the entirety of the 5,165-meter Mt. Ararat and extending to its southeast to incorporate Lesser Ararat (Küçük Ağrı), itself 3,896 meters in height.
Following the failure of the Ararat revolt, Khoybun ceased to function. As the revolt began in 1928, the French and
